Category: journey

Over the past few months, a good friend and I have been discussing friendship. Even in our thirties, it’s seldom a simple thing. Relationships are hard, and that goes for dating ones, marriages, familial relations, and even friendships. The part that feels like it should be the most challenging- the getting to a good place part- that is usually the really easy part. 

Maybe easy because it’s new and fun. 

Maybe easy because it feels worth it. 

Once it’s ours though, a lot of us get a little lazy. I’m pretty good about realizing that though… 

The part that I really struggle with however, is the part that comes next. 

Because really, when it is time to say “enough”? 

I have never been good at that. For the whole of my life I have been overly criticized for being too forgiving. I have been told on numerous occasions that I suffer from doormat syndrome. Maybe I do. 

I talked, some time ago, about Kelly and how she really crushed my little friendship heart. She did this repetitively. (yep, cuz’ I am apparently too forgiving) Up until a few months ago I always saw this, in me, more as really loyal. Unconditional. Maybe I’ve been wrong. 

But still, I’m slow to friendship due to the damage Kelly caused. I am jaded. And, as a result, I tend to be a little more prone to perform friendship maintenance than I used to be. Recently though, I had the opportunity to spend some time with an old friend. I don’t know why I did it, but I opened my mouth and confided something very big (to me) and personal. Prior to taking that step, I felt really safe in this particular friendship to do said confessing. Upon closing my mouth, however, my honesty was met with her harsh judgement. It was a total slap in the face. It was made clear that nothing I could say would affect the position that I was perhaps a liberal idiot and a complete lost cause. 

And either I’m growing up, or this particular situation isn’t one that encourages me to feel super loyal, because I kinda feel like a line was crossed and I am still really hurt/upset. I feel ready to close that door and lock it tight. 

Which kinda sucks. 

But not as much as being in that position did, so there is that. 

And so i find myself once again asking myself what it is that I am looking for in my friends. In new ones, in old ones. 

And also asking, why does it have to be so dang hard? 

J has not been kind to me. 

If I believed in curses, I’d think some sort of J curse was placed on me when I was but a wee lass… 

It started with a step dad named Jerry, when I was a toddler, who liked to get me drunk and play with my mom like she was a punching bag. True story- we actually fled for our lives and hid out in Sin City, which is where my very earliest flashes of memories are. 

As I grew up, I had best friends and boy friends. Normal middle school to high school tragic romances and heartbreaks. Reflectively though, it’s the one’s owned by the letter J that stand out the most. 

John… the relationship that ended so beyond tragically that still, to this day, I feel sick at my stomach when I think about it. Everyone in his family was affected, manipulated and hurt by what happened and not long after that- his father died. 

Jim… that boy from a far, whom I spent the summers in “love” with, but he didn’t even know I existed. Then, the summer of my junior year (i was just sixteen) he sat down with me, poured out his heart (about life stuff) and suddenly acted like I was his best friend ever. As the leaves turned he would mail me letters doing just that. And then he stopped, and I’m not sure whatever happened. Broke my summer crush heart at any rate…

James… first true love- of the soul mate variety… far deeper relationship than any sixteen year old should have. Ended at a bus station, sort of. I carried along a lot of baggage from this one, for far too long. He is a giant Jerk now, which fits- what with the J and all… 

Justin… If I were to collect my love stories, print and bind them, this one would be the best. Though nothing horribly devastating happened during our relationship- it was intensely played out and the timing was tragically wrong for us. Then, things went really bad for him and now, now I have no idea. 

Jared…  Jared and I didn’t date, but that did not change the intensity of our friendship at all. He was that dark and brooding boy, intense and artistic. He was that guy who could look into the core of me and pull out truths I wanted no one to know. I adored him. Spending time with him, (which happened daily) left me both amazingly inspired and incredibly drained. He died tragically, far too young. 

Jaycaun/John… Though i doubt either one were even his real name, he did an amazing job pretending they were. He was a scam artists/pathological liar, to his core, but the way I felt about him was real. He hurt my heart over and over again, for far too long. Then finally, one day, I wised up… 

When our sweet little Genny came to us, we made the decision to keep her birth name (sort of), only spell it a little different. Family criticized us horribly for not taking the opportunity to also change her G to a J. 

No way… by then, I knew better. J’s and I just don’t play nice together… 

Cue the young adulthood and romantic life of my oldest daughter Amanda. 

She’s dated quite a few screwed up douchebags… 

Guess what letter their names started with.

Yep. 

So she goes on a date with this guy last week and giddily she tells me about it. After she leaves for work, Genny (who had been completely listening to everything, as she always does) says to me “All I have to say is, at least his name doesn’t start with a J!” 

*grin* 

She picked up on that one, due to her sister’s troubles, all on her own. She knows nothing of my own. Hopefully this is enough to spare her from the curse of the J. True to herself, while rollerblading yesterday she met a new neighbor kid named Jake. After a warm introduction she said “i have to go in now. bye!” and rushed in the house…

Poor thing… or not. ha ha… 

*disclaimer… yes, my mom’s name was Julie. And yes, I’ve had friends among the Jen and Jess variety, as life has gone on…